PAINTED DESERT

Painted Desert is the name for a broad area of colorful badlands located in Northern Arizona in the United States. The desert stretches from the Grand Canyon National Park into the Petrified Forest National Park and runs roughly astride and just north of the Little Colorado and the Puerrco Rivers. The area within the Petrified Forest National Wilderness is also known as the Painted Desert Wilderness. Much of the Painted Desert region is located within the Navajo Nation. The region is also home to a number of county parks such as the Little Painted Desert County Park found just north of Winslow. The Navajo and the Hopi people have lived in the region for at least five hundred, and one thousand years, respectively. However, the modern name for the desert comes from the Spaniards who named it "el Desierto Pintado" due to its brightly colored landscape